Online research in philosophy

Recently, a number of Anglo-American philosophers of very different sorts--pragmatists, metaphysicians, philosophers of language, philosophers of law, moral philosophers--have taken a reflective rather than merely recreational interest in literature. Does this literary turn mean that philosophy is coming to an end or merely down to earth? In this collection of essays, one of the most insightful of contemporary literary theorists investigates the intersection of literature and philosophy, analyzing the emerging preferences for practice over theory, particulars over universals, events over structures, inhabitants over spectators, an ethics of responsibility over a morality of rules, and a desire for intimacy with the world instead of simply a disengaged knowledge of it.

Recent philosophical discussion about the relation between fiction and reality pays little attention to our moral involvement with literature. Frank Palmer's purpose is to investigate how our appreciation of literary works calls upon and develops our capacity for moral understanding. He explores a wide range of philosophical questions about the relation of art to morality, and challenges theories that he regards as incompatible with a humane view of literary art. Palmer considers, in particular, the extent to which the values and moral concepts involved in our understanding of human beings can be said to enter into our understanding of, and response to, fictional characters. The scope of his discussion encompasses literary aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology, and he makes extensive reference to literary examples.

This monumental collection of new and recent essays from an international team of eminent scholars represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to both literary and philosophical studies of literature. Helpfully groups essays into the field's main sub-categories, among them ‘Relations Between Philosophy and Literature’, ‘Emotional Engagement and the Experience of Reading’, ‘Literature and the Moral Life’, and ‘Literary Language’ Offers a combination of analytical precision and literary richness Represents an unparalleled work of reference for students and specialists alike, ideal for course use.

In Literature, Life, and Modernity Richard Eldridge focuses on the question of a reader's or a viewer's response to a literary or dramatic work in a specific historical epoch ("modernity"). That is, in contrast with many other philosophical approaches to literature, he avoids fixing attention on any putative doctrinal (moral or political or diagnostic) claims in a literary work. Thereby, and in many other admirable ways, he avoids the danger of treating literature as philosophy manqué, concedes the distinctness of literary experience, and only then asks about the significance of this experience. (In this way his approach is reminiscent to some extent of Schiller's; not bad company to be keeping.) This all amounts to a philosophy of literature of sorts,[1] but avoids a forced "philosophy in literature" or "literature as philosophy" treatment. There are themes and ideas at stake of course, but for distinct historical reasons, Eldridge also thinks of what he generally calls "modern" literature as characterized precisely by the absence of any thematic resolution, and so by a kind of play of possibilities, unsettledness, even homelessness. But, he argues, this is a play of ambiguity that.

Introduction.--Literary history and tradition: Eliot, T. S. Tradition and the individual talent. Trilling, L. The sense of the past. Hassan, I. H. The problem of influence in literary history.--An aesthetics of origins and revisionism: Guillen, C. The aesthetics of literary influence. Block, H. M. The concept of influence in comparative literature. Bloom, H. Clinamen, or poetic misprision. Bate, W. J. The second temple.--Reader as participant: Rosenblatt, L. M. Towards a transactional theory of reading. Holland, N. N. Literature as transformation. Fish, S. E. Literature in the reader.

This is a paperback edition of what has become an important contribution to aesthetics and the theory of literature. The author analyses in detail how the reader responds to literature and how he begins to evaluate it. Mr Olsen characterizes literature as an institution and thus forges links with contemporary philosophy which sees all human action as ordered and defined by social institutions.

Proposing that the interaction between reader and literature involves four “modes of textual engagement” — recognition, enchantment, knowledge, and shock — The Uses of Literature bridges the gap between literary theory and common-sense beliefs about why we read literature.

Literature, like the visual arts, posess its own characteristic philosophical problems. Literary theorists have discussed widely the nature of literature, while analytic philosophers have dealt with literary problems within the framework of aesthetics or have restricted themselves to topics which are accessible only to a philosophical audience. Philosophy of Literature is unique in that it introduces the philosophy of literature from an analytic perspective which is both accessible to students of literature and students of philosophy. Specifically, the book addresses: the definition of literature, the distinction between oral and written literature and the identity of literary works. Philosophy of Literature offers fresh approaches to traditional issues and raises new questions about the nature of philosophical problems which literature gives rise to.

The essays in this collection are concerned with the philosophical problems that arise in connection with the understanding and evaluation of literature - such problems as the relationship between the work and the author (authorial intention), between the work and the world (reference and truth), the definition of a literary work, and the nature of literary theory itself. Professor Olsen attacks many of the orthodoxies of modern literary theory, in particular the enterprise to build a comprehensive systematic literary theory. His own work is informed by a consistent perspective: the assumption that literature is a social institution governed by conventions, and that answers to problems of interpretation and appreciation can be found only through an analysis of these conventions. This is an important book for scholars and students of literary theory and philosophy, especially for those who see an ever-increasing cross-fertilization between the two disciplines.

There is no shortage of testimony to literature's puzzling, unsettling, intoxicating, affecting, delighting powers. Nor has there been a shortage of attempts to define literature as a concept, a body of texts or a cultural practice. However, no definition has been able to pin down the peculiarity of literature or to chart our experience of the literary. In this volume, Derek Attridge ask us to confront with him the resistance to definition in order to explore afresh the singularity of literature. In seeking new purchase on the elusive "literary", the author finds himself reflecting upon the history of Western art as a practice and as an institution. At its heart he finds a closely linked trinity of crucial issues: innovation or invention , the uniqueness or singularity of the artwork and, underlying these, the concept of otherness or alterity. Calling for a type of reading that does justice to these aspects of the literary work, he explores literature as event or performance and brilliantly retheorizes its place in the realm of the ethical. The author acknowledges the impossibility of definition and rather offers us an account of his particular "living-through" of the literary in the terms above and invites us to share with him the insights it might offer. The insights in this case are invaluable, as we are offered not only an original framework within which to consider texts, but a clear case for the ethical value of the literary institution to a culture. Never losing sight of the pleasures and potency of our experience of literature, The Singularity of Literature is itself a delight to read. Returning to arguments begun in his influential volume Peculiar Language , Derek Attridge here energizes discussion of the literary by forever shifting the terms of debate and offering new perspectives on questions that haunt every reader.